Deaf people affected by Texas winter storms

Texas has been hit hard by snow and ice storms and freezing temperatures. I was able to chat with three deaf people from the Austin and Houston areas to describe their experiences.

Taylor Williams (Houston):
I walked in my bedroom to open the drawer and I saw the TV turn off. I was like “No! No! I don’t want to be cold tonight.” I told my mom about it and she said “Oh no.” I put on my gloves and warm clothes and slept on my couch in my apartment. I slept with my dogs. It started to become dark outside and I had to depend on my faith. I went back to sleep but it was so cold I had a hard time sleeping. It was so, so cold. Yes, I was with my two dogs and we were snuggled up to stay warm. In the morning I checked the weather on my phone but the battery was almost out. I panicked and contacted my friends. Many of them said their homes were full. I had to keep the faith. I found a friend 15 minutes away and drove carefully and arrived safely. Thank God I’m safe.

Dana Mallory (Sugarland):
My experience with power outages is similar to hurricanes, same concept. But I have to survive in the winter. The power went out yesterday and now it’s two days in a row. On Sunday it was fine, but on Monday my neighbors had outages. The grid is off balance and the power is messed up. I had to wear a lot of thick blankets and stayed in bed. Or I would get in the car for about an hour, just enough as to not run out of gas, so I can charge my phone and contact others and let my friends and family know I’m okay.

Thumas Lee (Houston):
I saw houses on the street alternate between having power or out. At first I put on the heat. But the cold weather outside overpowered it. I had to put on many blankets. I set the thermostat at 68 because that’s what I saw on the news. But it was cold, so I turned it up a bit. But the power went out. I lowered the temperature and the power came back on. I have to reduce electricity usage. It was cold, so I had to use various heaters with gasoline or kerosene to keep it warm. But it still doesn’t work. I was very cold, yes. I’ve helped other deaf people around to put foam pipe coverings. A group of volunteers have installed the foam on others’ water mains. Some worked out, but some others didn’t, with burst pipes. Maybe there’s not enough foam in the interior of their homes. So I’ve had experience with bad weather with hurricanes and this ice storm. What is different? With a hurricane, I can board up the windows and stay safe. With ice, it’s worse. Because while a hurricane damages your home, your body is okay. But the ice storm causes your body to be stressed and causes panic.

Alex:
Thank you three for sharing. You can see that there are two common issues: power outages or burst pipes.

Now I will show you a video from Cesar Rocha, who with his Access to Activism team, was able to provide emergency help to vulnerable people in the Austin area.

Cesar Rocha (Austin):
I rescued about 10 deaf people who had no electricity, no water, and no food. I brought them to hotels or to their friends. I was in touch with one of my hearing friends who has a farm and we cut down about 40 trees for firewood and brought to deaf people, interpreters, or locals in need. It’s amazing. There are 3 or 4 deaf homeless people who sleep in tents. I know them and when the storm hit, I was concerned. I had to tap hard or shake the tents because hearing people can hear others calling to offer help. I am forced to shake the tent really hard to get a woman’s attention and I was relieved she was still alive. I asked her if she wanted to stay at a motel and she said, “yes!” So I arranged that and worked with my team to make things work. Many deaf people thought it was “nothing” and that the electricity would come back on, but it’s been two or three days. It’s so cold. No internet, no phone. But we managed to contact others and help. I went to several people’s homes and the interior temperature was just as cold as outside. But sometimes it was colder inside because it’s an enclosed area. It’s freezing. Others had to put on many layers of blankets until they realized they had to call for help.

Alex:
Thank you Cesar for sharing and for being willing to help out the vulnerable.

There was some frustration among deaf people in Austin because when the mayor gave a Zoom press conference yesterday, the ASL interpreter was on a very small screen at the bottom instead of being pinned at the top.

It was better today with the interpreter’s screen being pinned at the top right corner.

Why is it really bad with the power outages? I was able to chat with Otis Sizemore, who has worked with the state government in different capacities and has experience with emergency management, and Jason Shaw, who is a master electrician. I will show you some video clips from Otis as Jason was unable to chat on video.

Otis Sizemore:
Texas relies on oil and gas. In the past, the state relied on natural gas and decided to develop a structured system called ERCOT. What is it? It is a board/commission that establishes guidelines to make electricity cheaper for customers and provide competition instead of having one price for everyone. So, that’s ERCOT. After some political and election processes, only Southern, Central, and Eastern Texas wanted to be a part of the program, while Northern Texas (Amarillo, Lubbock) declined to join. They already have a grid that is set up with New Mexico, it’s called EXCEL. They provide power for the western area. So that’s why the Southern and Eastern parts of Texas are shut down because of major issues with natural gas. Okay. So, ERCOT has data set up and they explained why there are outages. The nuclear power plants are providing only half the amount of power because of the weather. Not only that, gas wells are not insulated. They didn’t expect the freeze and now they can’t extract the gas out. Normally, the pumps can suck out 24 billion cubic feet of gas. But the freezing temperatures have reduced it to about 12 or 10 billion cubic feet. That’s a huge amount, 75%, that’s down with gas production. Why do we need gas for electricity? It is used in the process that plants use to make electricity. There are other sources such as renewable energy, for example, windmills. There’s a lot of talk about it on social media, whatever. But renewables only provide 20% of the electricity to the state of Texas. So that’s ERCOT’s setup. As for the electricity itself, how it runs with the wires and the infrastructure, that’s a whole new problem. It’s not only from the natural gas wells being frozen. The cold weather has caused the equipment — the equipment is not prepared for the cold weather. It’s not updated. The structure has been jury-rigged for a long time but the main function has not been fixed. That’s why Gov. Abbott just issued an executive order to investigate why this is happening and how we can work to prevent it from happening again.

Alex:
Thank you for explaining, I hope it helps all of you to understand better what is going on with the Texas power grid. My thoughts are with you all in affected areas and experiencing cold weather without electricity, water, or food.